Chris Lombardi puts defense and security under the spotlight, as he shares his takes on recent NATO and EU cooperation and provides insight into the company’s own long-term strategic partnerships in Europe.

Three trends are currently driving the global electricity sector: decarbonization, decentralization and differentiation. Utilities are making significant contributions to mitigate carbon emissions, while a technology revolution is …

Michel goes over Ferrero-Waldner’s head after EuropeAid turf war

The new Commission is not yet in place but already the manoeuvrings between Louis Michel and Benita Ferrero-Waldner are a joy to behold for those who like a good turf war.

Michel is to be development commissioner but Ferrero-Waldner, the external relations commissioner, will be responsible for the EuropeAid Cooperation Office. Much to the interest of institutional geeks who follow this kind of thing, it seems that the Commission President-elect, José Manuel Barroso, has been persuaded to give the external relations commissioner a bit more muscle over EuropeAid than was the case when Chris Patten and Poul Nielson were the respective commissioners. The minor victory is credited by some to the Machiavellian manoeuvrings of Patrick Child, Patten’s chef de cabinet, who will do the same job for Ferrero-Waldner.

But Michel’s camp has managed to land a blow in return. Because the Belgian joined the Commission in the dying days of Romano Prodi’s administration, to take over from Philippe Busquin, he has longer service and therefore seniority over Ferrero-Waldner. Which explains why his office is on the tenth floor of the Berlaymont and hers is on the ninth. (These things matter, you know…)

By chance, his office is directly above hers. “So if he’s annoyed, he need only jump up and down,” said one disrespectful Commission official. Perhaps it was just such a fear that, according to some reports, prompted Child to suggest that it would be more convenient if both commissioners were on the same level. Michel’s people gave the idea very short shrift.

Of course, Michel, who was previously Belgium’s foreign minister, is impatient to get back to embracing all his friends, the political leaders of Africa. The delay in bringing in the Barroso Commission meant he had to cancel his trip to Akkra for the EU political dialogue with West Africa (uncomfortably close to Ivory Coast as things turned out).

Instead he had to stick with the research dossier for a little longer. Top of the research agenda has been the campaign to site the nuclear fusion research facility Iter in Europe. That did give Michel the chance to put one over on the US, which had opposed siting Iter in Cadarache, France, which Donald Rumsfeld would know as the land of les singes bouffeurs de fromage capitulards. Even the research portfolio can be the extension of foreign policy by other means.

There is something splendidly parochial about the state-aid investigation launched last week by the European Commission’s competition department into JC Decaux, a French advertising company. The question …